


our children, who art in heaven

by lucrezias-sparklyhairnet (shedseventears)



Category: The Borgias
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shedseventears/pseuds/lucrezias-sparklyhairnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanozza is the only one who knows the truth of her family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our children, who art in heaven

                When she birthed they were bloodied and screaming for more.  In that way, they haven’t much changed.

                Always the cloud of birthright and heritage and have-not hanged over her youngest son; and so she spent her days teaching Lucrezia the graces of the world and pulling Juan and Cesare off one another’s throats.  That never changed either.

                Her place was to sit and dance and sing the beauties of the world to a man who saw everything as it wasn’t and nothing as it was.  Her lover came by too little to notice the way she pushed her babes off on a wet nurse, the way she bound her breasts after birth to keep them high and plump. 

                The children he met were rosy-cheeked and beautiful.  Juan, with all of his father’s spirit, Rodrigo said; Cesare, so studious, so protective as a firstborn should be; and Lucrezia, holding her brother as if she was feeding off of him, curls combed neatly out of her face.

                Her children are wolves with their milk teeth, biting ineffectually and clawing when need be, but never leaving wounds.  But Vanozza sits in the courtyard at the cardinal’s side.  She watches Cesare with his toy soldiers, watches him trip up his brother to make Lucrezia laugh.

                And she watches Juan, wiping smeared dirt from his cheeks.  And with Gioffre in her arms, Vanozza knows that this is what his family should be.

XXX

                Her children are lit by fire, sinking their teeth into one another in more ways than one.

                Cesare lounges in his bishop’s robes, eyes narrowed as he watches Juan swallow bite after bite of roast chicken.  His fingers play with Lucrezia’s hair, and she does practice her lute so prettily.

                “Another, my love,” he tells her before Vanozza may, never looking away from Juan’s sticky maw. 

                He’s the closest and furthest of her children, Cesare.  Close in that he does speak to her, does seek her advice.  The furthest in that she’s not sure if he listens, if his mind at seventeen is already grasping, seeking things he should not seek. 

                He’s quiet now, turned to Lucrezia.  She looks an innocent child, her face turned to the sun.  But Vanozza recognizes the way a woman basks in adoration, sucks it dry to keep her youth.  Lucrezia is a child in body, a woman in mind.  She has been raised in man’s worship, her hands washed and hair brushed by princes of the church.

                Juan’s finished now, and he grasps her hand with fingers coated in grease.  Vanozza has never loved this second-born as she should, and there are moments when she can’t bear to think of what he will become.  So unpolished, so lacking his siblings’ grace and sharpness.

                His hair is tangled with the fingers of whores and there are times when she wishes that she had two children instead of four.  It’s so hard to watch them fail and vanish into obscurity.

                The pope is fading and Rodrigo is plotting, counting his coins and planning for his offspring.  He speaks of marriages for Lucrezia, a cardinalate for Cesare, and things that Juan could not dream of accomplishing.  But Vanozza sees her children with their heads on spikes; and it is only the crowns resting on their brows that make it better.        

                At night, Cesare visits her before the fire.  He asks her what she knows of his father’s plans; no more than he, likely less.

                His fist curls and uncurls, reaching for the dagger that would fit there so well.  The flames play across her son’s face, and there Vanozza sees a child who is no longer a child, the creature that he will be.  And she is proud.

                “He’s wasting me, Mother.  And he doesn’t listen.”  Cesare’s teeth flash sharp like a wolf’s.  “When that does bite him, remember that I gave warning.”

                Warning.  Smashed teeth, broken bones.  “It is God’s will, Cesare.  You will be your father’s prince—“

                He laughs, a growl from the back of throat.  “A prince of the church is not a prince of state.”

                Juan will wear the armor; Cesare will inherit their father’s throne.  But when Vanozza closes her eyes, she sees something different.

                “Honor thy father and mother,” she says, gripping his hand.

                He takes his away.

XXX

                Vanozza has—or had—a lover and a husband, children with whom she pleased.  Why this does not satisfy Lucrezia, she cannot know.  But then, little satisfies Lucrezia and her grasping hands.  Not the rank she receives in the Vatican; not her father’s gifts of jewelry and gowns and lands for her little son; not even Cesare’s hushed prayers, his arms around her waist.

                She has a brother in the College of Cardinals, a pope for a father.  And yet Lucrezia does not confess.

                “It is a good match.”  Vanozza says over the child’s cradle.  She reaches for his rosy cheeks, only for Lucrezia to snatch him from her grasp.  Lucrezia covets the child, holds him in the Vatican like the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.  “A match you agreed to, by the way.  Within the last two hours, mind you.  Do you doubt already?”

                “I do not doubt.”  Lucrezia passes a hand over her son’s head.  For him she would cut throats.  “I only wonder.  What will come.  What I will make of him.”

                “What you will make of him?”  Vanozza has seen the boy, wandering after her daughter like a creature gentled, like many men wander after her.  And she has seen Cesare in her mind’s eye, hands waiting for something to strangle.  “He is a good man.”

                Lucrezia’s lips twitch, and she presses a kiss to her son’s forehead.  “He is a boy.”

                “Like your child’s father.”  The words are out before she can stop them, but already Lucrezia has closed her eyes.

                Cradling the child so closely in her arms, Lucrezia turns her back on Vanozza.  “You are right.  His father was a boy.  And I do not miss him so much any longer.”  There’s a distance to the way she speaks, a hollow echo like the cardinals’ chants.  “I barely remember him; I recall only what he gave me, and how this one does resemble him.”

                This one.  Like there will be many more.  Few women marry more than once; and most that do are widows. A widow’s weeds would suit Lucrezia’s well, the black against her marble flesh.

                “I want to see him fight,” she murmurs into the child’s flesh.

                “For what?”  Alfonso is little, fragile almost.  His hands are made for a lord’s glittering rings, not a sword.  “You?”

                “For me.  For power.”  Lucrezia looks over her shoulder.  And when the lights her face, she shines like a haloed Madonna.  “For his life.  I wish only for him to fight.”

XXX

                They gather ‘round their father’s sickbed, Alfonso gone, Lucrezia cold, Cesare a priest no longer.  His hands settle at her shoulders, dark against light. 

                “Go to your chambers, my love.  Your dress—the blood—“

                “I will wear it for Father.  And he will wake.”  Her voice is hushed, her fingers against his cheeks.  As their foreheads touch they are one creature, and Vanozza thinks of the days Cesare spent chasing his sister in the courtyard.  It was not so much like this.  “And you will kill them.  Won’t you?”

                His lips curve; and Cesare cares more for power than his father’s life, than his brothers.  He would no mourn so greatly if not for the Vatican lost.  They danced on his grave and now they whisper their nothings over the pope’s dying form. 

                “I will kill them.”

                Lucrezia’s thumb passes over his lower lip.  “And you will return to me.”

                “And I will return to you.”

                Their father spits black bile, and all they care for is one another.  But then, that has always been their way.

XXX

                “I wish to speak with you about Cesare.”

                “Do not tell me what I already know.”

                There are nights when Vanozza dreams of Cesare ripping Juan’s belly with a smile on his face.  Passing bloodstained fingers across his brother’s cheeks, staining him with what is left over.  There are times when Vanozza wishes that Juan had not been born; but never does she wish him death.

                “Fine, then.  I wish to speak with you about Lucrezia.”

                The pope turns his head, slumps in his chair.  “She tells me that she is pleased with this marriage.”

                She lies.  She always lies.  Lies with a smile, lies with tears, lies with kisses laid against battered cheeks.  But the pope lies to; lies to the world, lies to himself.

                “The consummation—“

                “Not a good start to a marriage, I will admit.”

                Vanozza stood there among the witness.  Watched Alfonso strip her bare, watched her lead him to the bed, guide him where needed guiding.  She watched her daughter grit her teeth and prepare to bear it. 

                But then her lips curved, her fingers dug into Alfonso’s back.  And she threw her head back, the line of her eves over his shoulders.

                Vanozza saw Cesare lean forward; and she wished it was a protective gesture.  But she saw the quickening of his breath, the way Lucrezia looked at him until she was in rapture.

                “I believe she has a lover.”

                “So soon?”  The pope’s jaw clenches.  “Counsel her, then.  We cannot have this marriage at an end.”

                Not until it needs to be.

XXX

                She sees them at meals, his fingers at her throat.  She sees the dark circles beneath their eyes, the long gazes traded over dull legal documents.  Lucrezia whispers in his ear, laughs when she asks for this favor or that.

                One day she finds them in the armory, Lucrezia’s hands at his should, Cesare’s head dipped low.  Their lips brush, an unholy kiss.  And they break apart, Lucrezia turning round.

                Vanozza would tell their father.  But their eyes say otherwise, the pope’s fanged offspring warning her of how easily she could fall.

                One night she finds Lucrezia naked, her husband gone as she rubs rose oil over her breasts.

                “Do you not think I know what you are doing?”  Lucrezia’s hands rubbing Cesare’s shoulders after a long day’s work.  Cesare’s grip on her throat, the quickness of their breaths as they look at one another.  “It is a sin, Lucrezia.”  Bile rises in her throat.  “A great—sin.”

                And Lucrezia looks over her shoulder, a serpent curling in her bed.  When the light plays over her, she is a Venus made, no longer such a Madonna.  “What’s one more?”

XXX

                Lucrezia wears her widow’s veil.  Cesare stands at her back, his fingers slipping about her hips when their father isn’t looking.  When he refuses to look.

                Nothing can shade the looks on their faces, the flint in their eyes.  They will go to their bed tonight; they will cry out over the dead husband, their intertwined bodies. 

                Vanozza’s children have broken her bones and sucked out the marrow.  And there is nothing she can do.


End file.
